Motherlike


Motherlike by Katherine Leyton
Publisher: Second Story Press
Special thanks to Second Story Press for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
We’re shapeshifters, women—beasts, but everyone likes to hush that up.

As soon as Katherine Leyton discovered she was pregnant, a powerful reckoning began. Motherlike is both a feminist memoir of new motherhood as well as a rumination on womanhood. A book for anyone interested in an honest and revealing look at a process that is essential to our experience as humans, and yet is routinely unexamined and dismissed.

Sharp and intensely candid, funny, and deeply poignant, Leyton weaves her own experience of becoming a mother to her son (the shocks, the strangeness, and the pleasures) with historical research and cultural commentary. Everything from the history of the birth control pill and the objectification of women’s bodies to the risks of labor and the realities of being postpartum. Leyton invites us into a very personal story that reflects a larger picture of ourselves (Goodreads).

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Move the Body, Heal the Mind


Move The Body, Heal The Mind: Overcome Anxiety, Depression, and Dementia and Improve Focus, Creativity, and Sleep by Jennifer Heisz
Publisher: Harvest
Special thanks to Raincoast Books for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
A noted neuroscientist reveals groundbreaking research on how fitness and exercise can combat mental health conditions such as anxiety, dementia, ADHD, and depression, and offers a plan for improving focus, creativity, and sleep.

Jennifer Heisz shares paradigm-shifting research on how exercise affects the brain, finding that intervals of intense workouts, or even leisurely walks, help stop depression and dementia, lessen anxiety and ADHD, and encourage better sleep, creativity, and resilience. Physical inactivity is the greatest risk factor contributing to dementia and anxiety—it’s as much a factor as genetics. In addition, exercise’s anti-inflammatory properties make it the most effective treatment strategy for those who are depressed and don’t respond to anti-depressants. The book focuses on overcoming inertia; using exercise to help fight addictions; how we can improve our memory with fitness even as we age; and, importantly, how exercise can help us sleep better, improve focus, and be more creative. Included are easy to use plans for unique aerobic and resistance workouts designed to strengthen the brain (Goodreads).
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Do I Feel Better Yet?


Do I Feel Better Yet?: Questionable Attempts at Self-Care and Existing in General by Madeleine Trebenski
Publisher: Chronicle Prism
Special thanks to Raincoast Books for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
If you’ve ever dared to express dissatisfaction with the state of your life, you’ve inevitably received a variety of helpful “Have you tried meditation? Exercise? A cult? An exercise cult?” In Do I Feel Better Yet? , Madeleine Trebenski explores more than 45 so-called solutions suggested to her in the name of self-care.

In a playful and at times sardonic chronicle of the elusive promises of multistep skin-care routines, gratitude journaling, scented candles, and more, Trebenski perfectly captures what it’s like to live in a time when homemade kombucha and weighted blankets are said to single-handedly solve all our problems. These essays will make you laugh, make you feel less alone, and maybe make you feel better—even if just for a little while (Goodreads).

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The Next Apocalypse


The Next Apocalypse: The Art and Science of Survival by Chris Begley
Publisher: Basic Books
Special thanks to Hachette Books for sending a copy for review.

Summary:
In this insightful book, an underwater archaeologist and survival coach shows how understanding the collapse of civilizations can help us prepare for a troubled future.

Pandemic, climate change, or our era is ripe with the odor of doomsday. In movies, books, and more, our imaginations run wild with visions of dreadful, abandoned cities and returning to the land in a desperate attempt at survival.

In The Next Apocalypse, archaeologist Chris Begley argues that we completely misunderstand how disaster works. Examining past collapses of civilizations, such as the Maya and Rome, he argues that these breakdowns are actually less about cataclysmic destruction than they are about long processes of change. In it’s what happens after the initial uproar that matters. Some people abandon their homes and neighbors; others band together to start anew. As we anticipate our own fate, Begley tells us that it was communities, not lone heroes, who survived past apocalypses—and who will survive the next (Goodreads).

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